Camino Institute: Why a young men's seminar in this day and age?
As some of you know, I co-founded a company called the Camino Institute with my friend and colleague Adam Baber back in 2018. Between the two of us, we’ve been working in Jesuit education for more than forty years. Following many years of leading international service immersion programs for students, we had a vision of offering similar experiences through an organization of our own. That vision became real with the Camino Institute.
Six years later, we have a beautiful two-acre campus in the rural Dominican Republic, and we conduct weeklong service-oriented retreats for groups of all kinds, from families and friends to schools and professional associations. Camino does not have a formal religious affiliation, but it is inspired in many ways by Jesuit spirituality. Our programs entail a pilgrimage experience built around four pillars: Travel with Purpose, Disconnect to Reconnect, Focus on What Matters, and Be of Service. We’ve hosted about a dozen groups since the pandemic comprising a total of nearly one hundred people including men, women, teenagers, and even some young kids.
In addition to Camino’s regular offerings, we developed a Young Men’s International Seminar (YMS) back in 2022. It’s something we knew we could do well. Why the intentionality of design for young men? We have spent our careers teaching and mentoring guys. So the program is a natural one emerging from that shared vocation.
Our experiences tell us that young men need to do things like this. That doesn’t mean young women don’t. It’s not a zero-sum game. Put simply, we just haven’t gotten there yet. Our company is only six years old—the first year was a startup phase without operations, and then the second two years were basically shaped by covid. So in reality, we’ve only been at this operationally for three years, and Camino is a part time gig for everyone involved.
So yes, we plan to get there, and offer seminars for young women—probably within the next few years. That will take leaning on the experience and knowledge of female leaders who can help us develop the curriculum with the right perspective, and serve in mentoring and leadership roles on the ground.
In the meantime, because of that professional background, Adam and I are both keenly aware of the challenges and opportunities present for today’s young men—and we believe Camino offers them something vital. We’ve had three consecutive annual programs filled with enthusiastic participants who report powerful, positive experiences. One of the alumni of our first YMS, Noah Lemoine, became part of our leadership team this past summer.
In an effort to explore the program’s value proposition—and articulate it to interested people—Adam, Noah, and I are each crafting a written response to this question: “Why a young men’s seminar in this day and age?” We’re not discussing each other’s responses as we’re writing them—that’s on purpose, so we won’t project thoughts upon one another. I’ll share those in the next post; then, as a follow-up, we’ll record a podcast in which we discuss each other’s thoughts.
I hope you’ll be interested in checking out our reflections. Also, that you’ll consider sharing them with young guys from college age through their twenties who might find what we’re doing to be a rewarding opportunity.
Here’s a link to that next post:
